Rolander on 28/5/2005 at 18:20
When I replayed DXIW using an All-drones build, I inadvertantly found that Hazard Drone could shield damage from Mag-Rail shots and Rockets. From then on, Hazard Drone was a preferred aug when I choose to play an aggressive style.
Then I went thinking about the Armoured Templar's self-destruct that would kill the player normally. Hence I fired up an All melee build with Hazard Drone to test the possiblility.
On normal difficulty, the self-destruct seem to take off around 70 % of the health bar from a Level 3 Hazard Drone shield Alex D. However, the damage seems highly variable, at times, even with max health, Alex may still take enough damage to die outright or take as low as 50 %. I suspect it is probably due to distance from the explosion. Hard difficulty would mean close to full health depleted; I suspect Hazard Drone won't be able to sufficently shield Alex to survive the self-destruct.
Thus, using Hazard Drone makes it possible for a pure melee build to attack Armoured Templars directly and survive the self-destruct, but with major damage and considerable chances of dying. I tried taking on the Armour Templar ambush at Antartica (where they set up to wait for you after you leave JC's Sanctuary) head-on using only the Dragon's Tooth backed by Level 3 Electrostatic and Strength aug, and it was a touch and go thing; I had to keep regenerating my health and topping off my bio-energy to make sure I could survive the self-destruct.
